Chapter Sixty-six
The Plan
6:50 AM.
While Mai informed Lefreve of the situation, the team composed of Shin, Lizbeth, Natsuki, Ryuuji, Philip and Zi changed into new equipment and checked their backpacks. In Shin's case, he had to get a new one. The one lost on the plane was customized and he didn't know where it had been. He hoped the search droids would find it later, otherwise Alexia would surely reprimand him for losing the two custom pistols she had given him. The new one was basic and had the same weapons as everyone else's, but no custom guns or anything like that.
On the other hand it's not like they were going to come in shooting up the place or anything. They didn't know what exactly was going on below ground, but it's not like they could shoot guns down there, not knowing if that wouldn't cause something much worse. The weapons they would use contained magnetic and tele-target firing mechanisms so as not to miss.
The protective equipment consisted mostly of parts such as knee pads, elbow pads, shoulder pads, with a system of nanobots to reinforce the clothing they already had an exoskeleton system and tactical armor covering the chest. The clothing configurations could be changed in case they needed it on the other hand.
When they had arrived the day before, they had all taken a pill in case they had to deal with any harmful radiation from the Dark Event. A measure that had proved in vain, but would now help them in case of radiation from the accelerator, in case something unexpected happened.
That was Mai's fear.
She had suffered the effects of a temporal distortion in some cases and knew how they could become. But it was a memory from over a century ago that still haunted her. Of all things a temporal distortion was a sporadic and small phenomenon. Changes in perception that could last minutes, or a few hours and at worst days, but always time went in the same direction. Forward. However, Shin and that boy had gone backwards with the distortion that the plane had brought from 2012.
Many things could happen and her fear was centered on the accelerator and what it could be used for. The unknown could be a double-edged sword in that situation, even if it was her job to capture those who had caused the plane disaster and kidnapped a member of her team and a civilian. But was it right to think of Lee Reubens-Leteo Waters as a civilian? According to Shin he had died and taken the answers with him.
What were they trying to do in Meyrin with Oxy? Mai had been in accelerators before and knew the security measures and the things that could go wrong. Especially considering how little information they had.
As Jade had said, the supposedly abandoned site in Meyrin had been a nuclear research center called CEEN. There were many sections of laboratories, but apparently everything was concentrated in the giant supercollider between France and Switzerland. At Meyrin there were several colliders. The old hadron collider, a linear accelerator that worked for a short time and the supercollider had been the three main ones, but there were other, smaller ones.
Following the protocols, before its final shutdown, all hazardous material had been removed, but machinery and structure had been left behind, as it could be used for other purposes in the future. That changed with the Crisis Era and then with the Great War. The old hadron collider had collapsed a good part of its structure on the west side, due to an attack during the Great War. But the supercollider had hardly been damaged.
If it had been put into operation, it meant that a lot of new material and state-of-the-art technology had had to be used to get it up and running in a short period of time. Something impossible more than a hundred and fifty years ago when it had stopped working.
They had to know what was going on in the field before they went.
After everyone was ready, several SID and French Army tactical transport trucks left the first perimeter, where they had been working on the aircraft case, and headed for the second perimeter.
Lefreve had left under SID command fifty soldiers, all in synthetic bodies, and a team of twenty-four combat droids. For his part, Mai had a team of fifteen FRT agents, experts and technicians. The GSN was a five-member team: Master Chief Thomas Granger, Senior Chief Officer Chris Alonzo, Special Warfare Operator Salome Villaruel, SWO Jade and SWCommunications Operator Jest, the latter two being the only two feys on the team.
Chris Alonzo was a tactical class wizard, who had served alongside Granger for ten years in the GSN. Salome was a muscular looking girl who was almost as tall as Granger. Jest was a fey who specialized in communication magic and had served with Granger for seven years. Jade looked the smallest of them all, if you didn't count the rabbit ears sticking out of her head.
Shin knew everyone on Granger's team, they were the ones who had tried to capture him when he had arrived last year, although the feud over that fight in the Gobi Desert was in the past.
The SID team was Philip, Zi, Shin, Lizbeth, Ryuuji, Natsuki and Jim Stuart, FRT team leader at Broxburn but who, given the circumstances, would be added as part of the operation, since he knew the details. Mai, as commander of the operation, would not go to the site with the others and together with Carissia, and a security team, would stay in what would be the Command Center to coordinate the movements of all the teams and receive information on how the situation would develop.
They were all ready to move to Meyrin after a reconnaissance.
During the trip, in the command truck, Mai coordinated with various French army bases and SID stations to send personnel. Within the circumference were two French army bases and three small stations. Even so, in a matter of minutes, she had managed to obtain the cooperation of the operational command to deploy a large-scale operation. Given what had happened to the plane, the Major Army Command had been on alert since Tuesday night for any eventuality. The French and Swiss air forces were put on alert, but did not deploy any heavy combat aircraft until they received orders that it was necessary to deploy more forces.
The deployment was made by land and some low-flying ships for the transport of personnel. There were in total one thousand three hundred mixed soldiers of the French army, about three hundred local SID agents, together with FRT teams to attack the main points.
Finally Mai's company reached the second perimeter and settled in Douvaine, a little more than twenty kilometers from Meyrin. From the truck that served as the Command Center, the team set out on a drone reconnaissance.
Granger sent a request to his superiors to allow the use of the special drones that the GSN had at Geneva Airport, for use in a joint mission with the SID, the Swiss and the French Army in Meyrin. The hummingbird drones quickly covered the distance to their target and set up in different areas of the site. They could not get closer than one and a half kilometers to the final target, but they were still able to provide the information Mai needed.
Indeed, there were disruptors to block the signal from the accelerators at an altitude of over two thousand meters and in the surrounding area. That was why the satellites could not detect the four main checkpoints.
The checkpoints were Meyrin in Geneva to the north, La Roche-sur-Foron in the east, an area that had become part of Boneville, Les Pont de Brogny in Annecy to the south and finally Seyssel in the southwest. Other reconnaissance operations were being carried out in the same way at those points and all had the same data. Smaller groups were studying the other points. That supercollider had more than 170 small control points and substations along the circumference with emergency exits, but many of them had been sealed off when it stopped working, while other entrances had collapsed over the years.
Mai watched the holographic screens with the projections and became concerned. The hummingbirds on Meyrin had detected at least over ninety tactical combat droids in different buildings, guarding and several mercenary teams. They also had a problem they hadn't expected. Despite being in tactical camouflage, the hummingbirds had been able to detect three alloys of fractium material slightly larger than that of the 3T-DS droids at different points. That could only mean one thing: heavy combat weapons. Possibly combat mechas.
Similar results were coming from the other three points.
Mai noted that now that they could have a complete map of the situation on the surface and, with the data provided by the satellite, she could better map the situation. The electromagnetic signals were strong at forty-four points, now that they had the readings from the hummingbirds they could count four more. Forty-eight. Forty-eight signals with traces of fractium material.
Maybe she was overthinking it but... forty-eight. Just the same number of fragments that had appeared in 2098, when that fractus in Baikit had self-destructed. Fractus that had been destroyed at the same time as the explosion in Tokyo. The fragments of the fractus had been stolen the previous year.
They held another small meeting to draw up the final plan and coordinate. They analyzed the available data on the super particle accelerator, its points of vulnerability and the possible consequences of its activation.
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Mai had already planned this when she had observed the ground deployment of the drones. Using maps of the time, information on the Internet and data from the subway network, she drew up the plan. A few years ago a group of urban explorers had tried to get into the site and got quite far before deciding to return. Thanks to the information they had posted on some of the urban legend network sites, Mai's Neurowire, with Carissia's help, had gathered data on the structure of the hadron accelerator and the linear accelerator that was more up to date than the old maps.
It was time to begin.
Mai's company, Alpha, would be divided into three.
Two sections: Hugin and Munin, both composed of French army soldiers and droids provided by Lefreve. Philip and Zi would join Hugin, providing support as snipers, as they both had experience in it. Hugin would go through Bourdigny, while Munin, along with Odin Squadron, would approach from southeast of Meyrin, passing near Geneva Airport, where two tactical mechas would join Munin and one Odin.
Odin Squadron was the small group and would be led by Thomas Granger as team leader, along with the SID agents and two droids. Under other circumstances it would have been a 000 SID Agent who would have had to lead, but Mai had to be in charge of the command center and Lizbeth had rank, but she had never commanded a Mesnie Hellequin case, not to mention that she had almost always been a solo agent.
There was something that Shin had noticed about that, and it was a certain reluctance that Mai felt about sending Lizbeth with the squad. It seemed to have to do with the mission that the squadron would be carrying out and that, contrary to the sections, it would be carried out below ground. Regardless, Lizbeth assured her that she would be fine and that her voice skills could be vital down there.
"Why can't you go underground?" Shin asked.
Lizbeth shook her head. "It's a long story, it'll be for another time. I'll be fine, it's something that happened quite a while ago. Don't worry."
Shin was left wondering but, given the emergency, it was best not to inquire. Lizbeth on the other hand was more than ready to go with them.
The plan of attack and infiltration was as follows.
Odin Squadron would separate from Munin at the old abandoned Meyrin Botanical Garden. While Munin would approach CEEN from east of Meyrin, Odin would head north to a checkpoint of the former hadron accelerator called LHC-b or LHC 8. That research center had had a detector in the past to study the quark-bottom, hence the b in its name. One of the first places where it had been studied what had happened to the matter-antimatter symmetry at the beginning of the universe.
This was vital in Mai's plan, as it was an operation that had to be coordinated between the two sections and the squadron and at the same time the other divisions at the remote points in France.
Chris Alonzo, Salome Villaruel, Jest, along with the GSN mecha and droids would be on the surface to establish a direct encrypted line of communication with the command center. The other part of Odin Squadron would enter through LHC-8 along with a hummingbird drone.
From there the team would descend 175 meters down the elevator shaft to reach the pit and exit to the former hadron accelerator. From there, they would have to travel another three hundred meters to reach the junction with the linear accelerator and from there travel three kilometers in a direct line to the main section of the CEEN. Then from there they would have to go down the emergency stairs until they reached the entrance that linked that part with the super accelerator 1500 meters below the surface.
It was quite a long way, but they were trained for it and on the other hand the clothing and protective gear relieved the muscular work they would have to do on the way down. Something that could take anywhere from twenty minutes to a full hour to infiltrate, they could complete in fifteen to ten minutes if there were no setbacks.
When the squadron reached that point, Hugin and Munin's pincer operation on the surface would begin. As well as the attack on the other four main points.
Alpha would take care of Meyrin, Bravo, also with their respective divisions would attack the point at La Roche-sur-Foron, so would Charlie at Seyssel and finally Delta at Annecy. At the same time there were small groups and squads that would try to enter through old entrances that still communicated with subway networks of some cities within the territory of the super-accelerator.
The teams had the mission to cut the energy supplies to deactivate the accelerator, but first they had to check the situation inside, to make sure that it would not cause something worse.
The attack on the surface would give them some time before starting the attack from below. On the other hand, Mai had arranged to send a communication for teams of Orbital Knights to come down from their respective stations when the ground attack began, to give more support to the troops on the surface. They had a team of ten in relatively close orbit at the time so it was not a problem.
Twenty-seven other teams, in coordination with police forces, had been set up at the points of population centers, under which the accelerator passed, but which did not contain security. Those teams were in charge of the relatively orderly evacuation of the urban areas.
Many of the people living in those areas were waking up only to find that they were receiving alerts through the Neurowires to evacuate. This was not uncommon. Given the Dark Events, it was quite common that every few years evacuation drills would take place unexpectedly. So no one really suspected what was going on. They had heard through some rumors in the press that a large drill was taking place at Lake Lemac, or at least that was what had been revealed.
Finally Alpha Company began its deployment. It only remained to hope that all the simulations that Mai had run would go as predicted and they could take control of the situation at the same time they rescued Oxy and Lee Reubens.
The sky over the entire region for miles was still pouring down a fine rain and the clouds no longer seemed so dark but, even so, that overcast sky did not bode well in the minds of those heading towards the final objectives.
***
The pug opened his eyes and hid when Odin Squadron entered the transport where he was asleep.
He didn't understand what was happening and it had taken him by surprise.
The transport had started to move without warning. What was happening? Beyond his surprise no one seemed to detect him. That was because they were all talking to each other and exchanging information with serious faces. On the other hand he was camouflaged, his crystalline skin had taken on the appearance of his surroundings and he had crawled under one of the seats, where a blonde-haired girl was nervously moving her foot.
The little dog looked around and there was something that surprised him.
No, it was not possible.
He had only recently begun to detect colors with the changes to his body, but there was someone with red hair that caught his attention.
It was a man who had a somewhat messy hairstyle. He had seen a similar face the day after Sil Moore lost her head. That man had been with Zi and Philip in that room. He didn't remember his name, but it was almost the same face although the hairstyle was different. The dog remembered him with his hair combed back, while the one in the truck had a different hairstyle. But what caught his attention was that this hairstyle reminded him of Sil's, although the man had it shorter and without two-colored braids.
That man was Jim Stuart in the synthetic body, although the dog didn't know it.
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***
While all this was going on something else was unfolding.
One astronomical unit away from Earth the Sun was having its yawning coronal mass discharge.
For the past hour the activity had been increasing.
During the discharge something had happened that no one had seen before. A stream of superluminal particles had scattered in all directions. Some of those particles had reached the Earth and had impacted on a sphere that had been aboard the ship that EVE had piloted. Those particles, which Satou Nobuyama had called savitronics several centuries ago, had impacted inside a fractus nucleus contained within a sphere.
That impact had in turn activated some particles inside that nucleus.
As a consequence, what was called a distortion in the fabric of space and time on Earth was created.
An almost naked singularity that had only lasted a short time. But long enough to connect with two other naked singularities almost in the same space. One in 2012 and the other in the year 110. It was an almost naked singularity, because in spite of not being controlled it had served as a link between two eras long enough to carry out a procedure that joined the fragment in EVE's ship, with the fragment in the plane that had crashed. At the same time that singularity joining eras had done something else. It had returned something it had borrowed several centuries ago.
Over the years it had happened several times although many ignored it and all involving that fractus core.
June 30, 1908 a naked singularity had occurred. June 17, 1952 of the Old Era the same. The same with September 2, 1959. An almost controlled singularity had occurred on May 1, 1977. Another naked singularity had occurred on September 8, 2001 and January 1, 2098.
But those naked singularities were not alone.
They were followed by almost controlled singularities. In the quest to continue the species, humans, feys and conscious artificial intelligences had joined in a waltz that had lasted for decades and centuries.
A dance that had the purpose of perpetuating the progress of civilization. Of course, not many knew that.
And now the Sun was finally sending the last of that array of particles in all directions, even though they were actually destined for Earth.
They always had.
If so. There remained a question that not many knew, and those who knew did not know how to answer it.
From where had the information of these particles come to the Sun to be generated as a clock in the solar reactions to determine the events on Earth? Or were the events on Earth produced by the sending of those particles?
Or had someone else determined in the past, or perhaps future, that this would occur and left the clues for the protagonists to come together in a non-linear fashion to allow that future to occur?
Whatever the case, those answers seemed out of the range of importance at the time to the minuscule life forms moving on the surface of the earth, scheming plans in one direction or another.
Perhaps like the serpent of the Uroboros, they had all been chasing their tails in an unconscious or managed manner. If it was the latter, was there a snake enchanter, who with his flute, had made it happen in such a way?
Perhaps under the same scorching rays of the Sun, in a preterite desert, someone had seen the same events and as a message to a future millions of years away had planted the seeds for life to continue.
Whatever life forms were to inhabit that future.
It could even be that the enchanter or enchanters were there, even if they could not be perceived.